By
some accounts the United States has 13 statues of Robert
Burns. In our January History Club meeting we looked at
six of these statues: New York City; Albany, New York;
Barre,
Vermont; Denver, Colorado; Chicago, Illinois and San
Francisco, California. The oldest is in Central Park in
New York City, which was unveiled October 3, 1880. The
Chicago statue is located in Garfield Park and was
unveiled on August 25, 1906. The full story can be found
in The Scots of Chicago
beginning on page 56.

America does not have the honor of being first to erect
a statue and perhaps neither does Scotland. That honor
may go to Australia. Robert Burns had a friend by the
name of Peter Taylor who lived in Edinburgh and painted
houses and coaches. Apparently, Burns did sit for him
and Taylor painted his portrait. This happened in 1786.
If we accept Taylor as a portrait painter then this may
be the best image we have of Burns.

The
image we most often see is the one painted by Alexander
Nasmyth in 1787. It hangs in the Scottish National
Portrait Gallery.Robert Burns was 28 at the time. Nasmyth was
actually a landscape painter and we don’t know how good
he was at painting portraits. Some believe that the
painting by Peter Taylor “may be the closest likeness.”
I am sure there are others who believe that Nasmyth is
more accurate.

John Greenshields (1792-1835) was a sculptor who began
as an apprentice stone mason and worked as a quarrier,
hewer and builder before working with the mason and
sculptor, Robert Forrest in 1822. His studio was at
Broomhill, Clydeside Scotland. He designed the first
public monument to Sir Walter Scott in George Square,
but died before its final completion.

Sir
Walter Scott knew Greenshields and had on several
occasions visited his studio. In 1831, he saw a statue
of Robert Burns and wrote: “in a sitting posture, which,
all the circumstances considered, must be allowed to be
a very wonderful performance.” Scott became “an
important patron and admirer of Greenshields.” The
statue carved by Greenshields may be the only one based
on the portrait by Peter Taylor. All others are based on
the likeness drawn by Alexander Nasmyth.

The
statue seen by Scott on his visit to the studio of John
Greenshields is thought to be the oldest one of Robert
Burns that has survived. According to the British
Geological Survey web site, the statue was commissioned
by William Taylor of Leith between 1826 and 1830.
William Taylor’s son Peter emigrated to Australia in
1876 and had the statue shipped in 1882. They indicate
that it was “the only painting created when Burns was
actually present.”

The
citation on the statue reads:“Burns, from an original painting by his friend,
Peter Taylor, Edinburgh 1786. By John Greenshields,
sculptor, Edinburgh, 1830. Presented to the
public park by W. A. Taylor, Esq. Camperdown, 1883.”

Peter Taylor donated the statue to the town of
Camperdown before his death. For 150 years it has
occupied a small corner in the botanical gardens where
it has been vandalized. “The nose is broken off, the eye
socket damaged and parts of the hat brim missing.” The
statue and the story were recently discovered by Gordon
Ashley an Australian writer and historian. He is now
fighting to save the statue. It has been removed from
the gardens to a protected area and he would like the
statue brought back to Scotland for repairs.

Apparently neither government has the money to ship the
statue back to Scotland, so a search was started to find
matching stone in Scotland. The British Geological
Survey did some “stone-type fingerprinting and decided
that the quarry Drumhead near Denny, Scotland “still
contains exposures of rock which is of good quality and
suitable for repairs.

In
my Blog (chicagoscots.net) of November 22, 2010, I made
comments about this story from a BBC news article. Of
course, I had no idea where the Drumhead Quarry was
located, so I asked for help. In less than 24 hours the
owner, Tish Graham, contacted me through the Internet.
She and her husband own the Quarry! They are donating
the stone and by now it should be on its way to
Australia. If you would like to follow this story, they
have a Facebook page for Drumhead Quarry. I am a
follower and enjoy the information.